Category: Uncategorized

Just been watching the video for Kate Bush “The Red Shoes” (I have actually seen the 1948 film). I came to a strange realisation. Activism, especially LGBTQ activism, is like the Red Shoes. When you put them on, you dance their dance, and you can never take them off.

I wonder how many other people have had this happen to them, and understand.

This is a fusion recipe from a rather bland “just stuff it with ricotta” recipe I saw, David Scott’s “The Peniless Vegetarian”, and my own mutations on those themes.

I can’t give you exact quantities, just make a little more than you will make the hollowed mound (grin), and the rest will make an excellent pasta sauce.

Ingredients

For an average sized butternut squash, you will need:
1 onion (I prefer red)
3 cloves of garlic
1 capsicum pepper (I prefer green, my ex- preferred red)
Some red lentils
Optional green or brown lentils for texture and flavour. I used some puy
The lentil quantity is hard to estimate, but I ratio 4 red to 1 optional.
Roughly one handful of chopped mushrooms – i.e. when chopped, it is one handful
1 tin tinned tomatoes
Some tomato puree
A generous amout of garam masala – garam masala is what brings out the flavout in lentils
Some paprike
Optional chilli – if using chilli, I recommend fresh of course.
Optional Balsamic vinegar
Optional Marmite

Preperation of the Squash
1. Cut the butternut squash in half, length ways. This is very hard, you will need a good large knife, and may require you jumping up and down into the air. This is the second most hard of the procedure.

2. For each half, scoop out the seeds, and pare back the bowl till it is no longer overly fibrous. Discard this, or find a use for the seeds.

3. For each half, scoop a channel of the softer flesh up from the baisin up near the top. This has to be done by feel, is hard and thankless work. Also experimentation required. Reserve this flesh.

Preperation of the Filling

This is just basically a nice lentil sauce that can be used with pasta, rice, toast etc.

Important: this is not a stir fry, but a largish, heavy bottom pan is recommended.

1. Finely peel then chop the onions and the garlic. Chop the chillis if used (I am a chilli gal). Please observe Chilli Protocol[0]

2. Wash and chop the pepper and mushrooms. Not finely diced, but not crudite-sized slices. Remember that peppers shrivel down a little, mushrooms a lot.

3. Start frying the onions for a while in some oil (I prefer olive, but others are acceptible), until they just about to go translucent. Then add the garlic and optional chillis until the garlic is just cooking nicely.

4. Add the spices, turn over until all the containts of the pan are covered, and cook for another 30 seconds or so. Then add the tinned tomato, and then add half a can of cold water water which rinsed the tin out with. Stir this around, and make sure it is now at just at a simmer or pre-simmer.

5. Add the lentils. You want 0.5-1 cm of water above the lentils when you have added and stirred. Let these cook and expand for about 5 mins, stirring all the while, all the lentils will stick to the bottom.

6. Add the pepper, mushroom, reserved squash flesh, and optional dash of balsamic vinegar, and half a tea spoon of marmite. Cook and stir until the pepper goes soft. This is the hard part. Add boiling water if really too thick, or some tomato puree if too thin. There is no hard science to this, you want at the end of 10 minutes or so something resembling the thickness in texture of a stiff bolognaise sauce.

Assembly
1. Have a baking tray. Whether you prefer to grease, line with foil, or line with baking parchment is up to you. I prefer baking parchment.

2. Stuff those two halves of butternut squash with that sauce you made. It should make a mound of about 1cm about the level. If you feel extravagent, and are not vegan, sprinkle a little grated cheese on top.

3. Place in a pre-heated oven of 200oC. Cooking time should be about 20 mins, but larger ones take longer. The “acid test” is to briefly take them out, and prod the lower side with a fork. It should go through the skin with little resistance.

When ready, serve. It’s really a dish in itself, but some people might like a bit of salad, or maybe a light green risotto.

[0] Chilli Protocol: Declare to all present that chillies are being chopped. After chopping chillies, immediately wash hands thoroughly. Do not touch in the area of eyes or genitals until hands are washed. Declare to all present the chilli protocol is finished.

I am a transgender woman. I am open about this.
Hear me Germaine Greer.
I want that smelly, hairy vagina.
I would have that transplant if I could.
I don’t want to procreate, which is why I got vasectomied.
But don’t deny me my rights.
I want that hairy, smelly vagina.
I would actually take the agony of period pain.
You are an out-dated dinosaur.
I am a woman.
You deny us.
Sod you.
You don’t know us.

I have a problem with children. I want to make it immediately clear that the problem is MINE, not anybody else’s problem.

When a baby cries, or when a child cries in either pain or excitement, it causes me physical pain. Something is wired up wrong inside me. These noises, to me, feel like somebody is stabbing me in the center of my head with an abalating red-hot probe, and then I get sympathetic pains in my chest. If the noises are particularly loud, I then get pains in my arms and legs, almost identical to sciatica.

This causes me a lot of upset, but not just in the ways that you think. When I fly long distance, and there are screaming babies or children, I can block those out with headphones.

What really distresses me is the friends I can no longer visit or socialise with. I can no longer visit my sister, as she has two young children. Several of my closest friends from university, I only see at LARP events when they do not have their children with them.

I want to re-iterate, that this is a problem with ME, not those people who quite normally wish to have children. But I hope people do understand why I have to run away.